Wednesday, December 2, 2009

We are great fans of 'counting down' On my IGoogle, I have several countdowns; trips; birthdays; visits, etc...SO Advent is only another reason to do a countdown!

We had a few options this year.A friend gave us a Playmobil Advent calender. It has a bunch of little tiny Playmobil figures and pieces.

Everyday you open a box and voila! One more piece of the scene is revealed and placed in its place..Leigh folded up all of the boxes and put this one together herself.

We also are doing a Blessing Box this year. We were gonna do it last year and time got away so we started it early and were able to get it done in time to start the day after Thanksgiving.The idea is that you red a card everyday about something you are blessed with that a lot of people are not and you make a little contribution depending on how. you are blessed.For example:Are you glad you have indoor plumbing? Give 5 cents for every rollof TP in your house, counting all the stored away rolls.andIn some countries of the world, most people cant read. Are youthankful you can read? Put in a penny for every book in your home.It also brings into play math and money skills.

Then we have a regular cardboard one that I got at Target on the after Christmas sale that Carson is doing for fun.He even shared with Talia...

Oh yeah and chocolate one that is similar to the cardboard one....Other friends are doing some really cool things too.

We were talking about maybe doing these type of countdowns for other occasions. We sometimes do like treasure hunts with clues.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

OK, I'll admit it, I'm not overly partial to the whole 'Disney princess thing' I think it is a money sucking commercial venture. That being said, Leigh loves princesses, whether or not they are Disney. She's seen a lot of different princesses, including some actual princesses to see what they are all about.

She's actually more into the 'fairy thing'

Anyway, she picked out this book from Bookman's, (our great local used book superstore...)and it was called, "Disney Princess Crafts"I was really surprised at how neat some of the crafts were! They were very generic, (even though the book itself is divided into sections titled by a particular Disney Princess name...)

We made the "Jeweled Scrapbook" from the Aurora section...cute!We used a hinge, bought for 25 cents at the Habitat for Humanity Re-store,

Construction paper, glitter, sequins and a ribbon to hold the pages in...easy peasy!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The kids and I went to Lee Lees market last week with our HS group to seek out foods of Asia. This used to be one of my favorite haunts pre-kids. It is about 2 miles from our old abode. It has a marvelous selection of vegetables and spices to behold. I hadn't been in for about 8 months though. I was reminded how much I enjoyed shopping there while we were visiting. The kids picked out plantains, bitter melon and enoki mushrooms. We also got both nori wraps and rice paper wraps.We sauteed the plantains and the kids thought they were 'ok' I think they were expecting them to taste exactly like bananas...The enokis we sauteed with some cabbage and bean sprouts and rice and made spring rolls.

Both kids liked the spring rolls though

We also purchased some Indian foods that we had eaten before out but never cooked. We had bhaji and idli for dinner another night.

The nori sheets, we used just tonight to make some sushi like rolls for dinner. There was leek and tofu in them along with white basmati rice.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

I have no inspiring blog today filled with ideas and the wonderful things we did to commemorate the day.

We just got up, relaxed, colored, rode to the splash pad down the greenbelt and played in the water.

W have been talking lately how our current living situation is a lot more lower impact than we once were. By living in a condo right now, we are 'sharing' a lot of resources that we would otherwise be using solo.

Of course that will change once we move but we will continue to be as low impact as we can there.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I want to one of those mamas who write pages of witty prose or reflective lines or overly flowery, deep or intelligent dedicated tomes on each of their childrens' birthdays; or composes personal letters to them yearly (posted on their public blogs to the whole WWW), but well, I'm not.

Actually I don't even want to be come to think of it.

Today was Leigh's day. She was five. We let her decide what she wanted to do.

We started by visiting our friend Casey at his job (Office Max)

She's like me in that respect, all things office supply are fascinating! I especially like the displays there, so artfully arranged!

Anyway, next we went and played at the Chandler Mall play area while we waited for the Lego store to open!

She spent 45 minutes deciding on something in there.

She ended up getting a set and a PAB cup full of bricks. She even picked out something for Carson to get.

Then on to the Souper Salad for lunchfollowed by the Dino museum. (Carson picked those two things for his birthday and she wanted to do the same.)

She put together a woolly mammoth puzzle with her daddy

We came home, [played with Legos for a bit then went to Chipotle for dinner.

By the time we got home from all of that, everyone was spent and there were some overly tired kids in the house. It was not too soon by the time we were ion bed and asleep.

It was 102 today in Scottsdale...I can't believe we are in the 100s already. Summer is on the way!Tomorrow is Earth Day. I'll post more on our activities then.